


and i am done with my graceless heart

by aceofdiamonds



Series: soulmates au [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, POV Alternating, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8851243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: To be given her soulmate as someone she’s grown up with, someone she shares blood with, means that it really must be true and that the gods must have been willing to overlook all of that for them. The thought of her soul being compatible with Jon’s is disconcerting but she’ll speak to him and he’ll help explain. They’re meant to be, after all.
sansa and jon are soulmates, take three





	

**Author's Note:**

> have i done this to death? yes. do i have an idea for another part? yes. there's a lack of catelyn. i don't know how that happened. also, i've aged them up two years. ALSO, this is so idyllic and self-indulgent. title is from shake it out by florence and the machine

  
  


Despite what people may think, despite the blame they try to place, the hands they shake towards the skies and the calls of disbelief, the gods do not always have a say in soulmates. Of course, they have the power to match up many people and to leave others alone, but sometimes two souls come along that they already have plans for, ready to mark up their wrists with the names of the destiny they think befits them, and sometimes those souls dance out of their reach, join together, and the gods have no choice but to hold up their hands, admit that even they have shortcomings, and they allow the universe to guide them on their way. 

In a case where the two humans live in a castle in the north of Westeros, where they believe to be half-siblings, where they spend their time wary and civil to one another in a way that they are not with their other siblings, the gods themselves admit their surprise that they are destined to be together. But, of course, this is destiny, this is fate — things don’t always have to make sense. 

  
  


. 

  
  


Jon unwraps his cloth on his three-and-tenth birthday, alone in his room, and he sees his sister’s name etched into his skin. He covers it up again, swallows down the sadness that has overcome him at such an unfair call from the gods, and then he spends the next two years dodging questions from Robb and Arya and glancing at Sansa every so often, hope that maybe everything is different. 

  
  


.

  
  


When Sansa feels the burn of the name on her wrist, she’s eager as she peels back the cloth, can’t wait to see who she has been bound with. The eager dissolves into an anger and a — well, she’s stunned. This isn’t right. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. But then, she thinks back, right the way back to Jon’s three-and-tenth name day, when his name would have been revealed to him, and then she clasps a hand over her mouth, because he’s been nicer to her recently, he’s been approaching her with a hesitation built from their childhood of quarrels, and he’s stood up for her when Bran and Arya were uncontrollable.

He’s been trying. 

And things make a little bit more sense. 

  
  


.

  
  


She waits a couple of days to seek him out because this isn’t something that can be taken lightly. To be given her soulmate as someone she’s grown up with, someone she shares blood with, means that it really must be true and that the gods must have been willing to overlook all of that for them. The thought of her soul being compatible with Jon’s is disconcerting but she’ll speak to him and he’ll help explain. They’re meant to be, after all.

  
  


.

  
  
  


When Sansa approaches him one morning after they’ve broken their fast Jon’s stomach lurches and his hand strays to his wrist because he knows why she’s coming to speak to him and if she knows then that must mean that she has his name and that means he’s not being creepy or wrong.  

She pulls him by his sleeve along the corridors, up stairs, until they reach her room and then she tugs him inside, all the while casting furtive glances around her that will surely make them more obvious to onlookers but Jon keeps his mouth shut. 

“What’s going on, Sansa?” he asks, feigns ignorance. 

“Shh!” She makes sure the door’s locked. When she turns to look at him her eyes are wide, face pale, but there’s a hint of something dancing around her features, something Jon almost wants to call excitement, but he knows better and that can’t be it. 

It’s warm outside today and so Jon has short sleeves, his ratty cloth on display, while Sansa’s is prettier, neater, but frayed and hastily tied as though she’s taken it off to look at her name over and over again. 

It’s warm so when Sansa takes a couple of steps towards him Jon moves back into a patch of sunlight streaming through the window. That, combined with the nerves building in his stomach, make him sweat, because is she going to say? Is this the moment?

She nods as though she can read his mind. “I think —“ she pauses, starts again. “— I think you’re my soulmate, Jon,” and then she pulls off her wrappings and offers her arm out to him, palm-side up so all Jon has to do is lean in and there’s his name, his messy handwriting, looking bold and large on Sansa’s pale wrist. 

He pulls his gaze away to meet Sansa’s eyes which are frantic now because he hasn’t said anything and this is romantic, hopeful, Sansa who wants everything to work out how it does in the tales. Jon can’t think of a song that mirrors this. 

But he pulls himself into motion and he fumbles for his own wrist, the knot too tight, and so he gestures for Sansa to do it, give her back some of the control of the situation after she offered herself up with no way of knowing if she would get anything in return. 

It seems to take forever for Sansa’s trembling fingers to wriggle the knot free and then she’s lifting away the cloth and there — “Oh,” she breathes, as though she had had thoughts and maybe even hopes but none of them had solidified until now. “Jon,” she says, meeting his eyes. “What does this mean?” 

At five and ten he’s halfway to manhood and with his soulmate standing in front of him he’s a lot closer now than Robb or Theon but suddenly he feels like a child, too young to have his destiny weigh in on his life. But alongside this there’s a feeling he doesn’t know how to describe bubbling and bubbling inside of him until it bursts out in a laugh that he can’t stop.

Sansa frowns. “What are you laughing at?” 

Jon shakes his head, keeps laughing until his sides hurt and he begins to worry someone might hear and start knocking at the door.  He pulls himself together, another gasp escaping, but this is the wrong reaction, this isn’t funny. “I don’t know,” he says, rubs his side. “But doesn’t it seem absurd to you?” 

Sansa looks like she might be offended at that but then she thinks it over and gives him a rueful smile. “I remember when I was eight and you were ten — we fought that entire year it felt like.” 

“It got to the stage where we couldn’t be in the same room together,” Jon agrees.

“It doesn’t seem like we’ve been any good at being brother and sister,” Sansa continues, building the point she’s making in her head. “Maybe this is why.”

  
  


.

  
  


Things change but not in the way that might be expected. They don’t suddenly spend all their time together or become best friends or whatever they are supposed to be. They don’t suddenly stop arguing or picking different sides in arguments and games. But they start trying. 

Robb picks up on it at first when Sansa asks Jon to go for a walk in the godswood with her instead of playing the knights game he suggested. “Since when would you rather spend time with Jon?” he asks and it’s not cruel in the way it might sound, it just makes sense. 

“Jon reads, Robb,” Sansa throws back. “Unlike you. Maybe I want some civilised conversation for once.”

“Rather you than me, Jon,” Robb calls to the back of them as they make their way across the yard. 

Sansa tilts her head to look at Jon’s reaction to this, see if that’s true, but all he does is shrug, make a half-smile. “You always want us to go to the godswood, why?”

She looks away, across the wide spread of land that surrounds them, turns back to approaching woods, the way that despite the devotion she has always given the Seven, it has always made her feel at home. The Old Gods have accepted her for one of their own even if she still seeks her guidance in the sept. “It’s private,” she says, and Jon seems to understand.

After a while of walking Sansa finds a place below a tree that doesn’t look too dirty and carefully folds her legs beneath her. Her Lady Mother keeps commenting on how tall she’s getting, almost as tall as Robb and Jon and Theon. The ladies in the tales are always petite, dainty, small enough to be picked up by their knights. As Jon sits down beside her she sneaks a look at his arms — he’s been training a lot recently; she thinks he’ll be able to handle her okay. 

Tipping his head back against the wood, Jon sighs. Since she’s been getting to know him more Sansa has noticed that Jon always seems to be waiting for the worst to happen. He’ll cast his eyes around, focus on something, and that’ll be him until Sansa can force him out of it or make him laugh. That’s another thing she’s discovered — when she’s the one making Jon laugh the sound is so sweet to her ears she wants to bottle it up to keep for rainy days. He opens his mouth and laughs fully, none of those diplomatic chuckles Father says at dinner or the sniggers Theon throws after her when she walks past. Sansa never used to think much past what Jeyne thought of her dress, or how her stitching was going, or where her shining knight was, but now she’s added making Jon laugh to the list of worthwhile things to do. 

“I’ve never liked the summer,” Jon says after a while. 

“We’ve never known anything different,” Sansa points out, when the coldest they’ve had is bitter winds and furs to bundle up in when the temperature dips so they can see their breath. This isn’t summer the way the South knows it, but Sansa has heard too much about true winters to know that this is heat. 

“I know that I’m waiting for winter,” he replies. He twirls a leaf that has fallen in his hand over and over until Sansa reaches out and takes it. 

“It’s coming,” she says, quoting that long-known sigil. “And everything will change.” 

“What will happen to us?” Jon asks, and Sansa can tell now that that’s the voice he uses when he tries to be casual but has been something he’s been thinking about for a while now. “Do we hide it forever?” 

“What choice do we have, Jon?” Sansa takes his hand in her own. Three and ten and matched with the world, Sansa has felt older than her years since her nameday. “I know that to us nothing feels wrong but that’s not the way our father will see it, or my mother, or the Houses that follow us in the North.” 

Jon squeezes her hand. “Whatever happens, we do what we can to stay together,” and Sansa knows from what he's confided in her over the last while that to ask for this boldly, in a way that he still thinks is above his station, means that he really wants to be with her. 

“Of course,” she replies. “I'll do everything.”

  
  


.

  
  


There are cynics of the soul-mark system, those who question the gods and the forged connections between those who wouldn’t take a second glance otherwise. These cynics would look to these half-siblings who quarreled for their childhood and then all of a sudden they’re marked for each other and that love that was always below the surface, that family love that goes without saying, surges to the surface and new feelings bloom, almost conveniently. 

The romantics look at it differently: they see the promise of a second chance, that they’re both young still, their past doesn’t have that much of a voice in their future, and that the names on their wrists may not be the ones they expected but they’ve given them a new light to look one another, to see parts of them that they never knew before, a commonality between them, and maybe that’s a different type of bond and love than one from a more organic world, but who’s to deny them?   


 

.

  
  


Direwolf puppies aren't expected. After a harrowing day of watching Father execute a betrayer of the Watch, a giddiness Jon has come to associate with Sansa and happiness bubbles in his belly when they discover the pups, the number of the Stark siblings and even a tiny white one for him. 

Once they're back at Winterfell and everyone has cooed over their puppies, Jon scoops up the tiny grey one left burrowing in the scrap of fur. “I'll take this one to Sansa,” he says, tucking both pups inside his outer coat. 

“Be sure to tell her it's her responsibility,” Catelyn stresses again. “I remember many birds Sansa was determined to tame.”

Jon remembers them too but not in the way Arya does, suddenly laughing. “She taught them how to sing with her,” she says, and her tone is mocking but there's awe in there too. 

“Unlike you and your rats,” Bran counters. 

As Jon leaves Catelyn looks decidedly like direwolves might be an improvement on the past. The two in Jon’s pocket whimper in agreement.    
  


 

.

  
  


When Jon produces the direpup from his furs Sansa almost questions his sanity until the tiny pup snuffles and lets out a low bark, barely audible over Sansa’s gasp. She dumps her embroidery on her desk and takes the pup from Jon, holding her up to her face. 

“She's wonderful,” she breathes. “Where did you find her?”

“Beside her dead mother,” Jon says, blunt as usual, and then he brings out another one, this one with snow white fur and sharp red eyes, and Sansa loses her train of thought again. “There's one for each of us,” Jon explains, grin poking out at the way his is wriggling to be closer to Sansa’s.

“This little lady knows exactly what she wants,” Sansa laughs, holding out her hands and allowing them to nestle against one another. “Let’s see yours, Jon.” 

She attempts to juggle the two of them in the crook of her arm, they’re tiny after all, it shouldn’t be difficult, but in the end she relinquishes her own to peer at Jon’s. “Look at his eyes,” she says, voice hushed, because there must be some sort of omen here of a pure white direwolf with eyes red as blood. “Have you thought of a name yet?” 

Jon carefully swaps the pups back and Sansa can see from the way he’s cradling his that he’s over the moon, not least because it counts him in as a Stark sibling. “Not yet,” he murmurs. “Have you?” 

“Lady,” she says decisively, the name coming to her without much thought. “Arya always calls me that anyway, might as well put it where it fits.” 

“You are a lady though, Sansa,” Jon points out. “Or, you will be.” 

“Not for ages yet,” because it’s been fun recently, having this huge secret with Jon on the side of all her embroidery and lessons and the makings of the future, and she wants to stay in this sweet little bubble for a while longer. “You should call yours Ghost,” she suggests, to stop Jon commenting on the fact that she’s spoken about her wish to be a lady since they were small and now she’s digging her heels in. 

“He likes that,” Jon says, a small laugh falling from him at the lick Ghost gives him in reply. 

“The Lady and the Ghost -- sounds like a fairytale.”

And Jon meets her eyes above their pups and Sansa throws everything behind her to make this her own success story. 

 

.

 

Not long after, Ghost whines when there’s a knock at the door, a soft tap tap tap then a pause then another tap. He jumps off the bed and makes for the door, tail wagging as though he knows who’s on the other side and is pleased about it. Jon follows more cautiously. 

Sansa slips inside as soon as he opens the door, hands fiddling with her braid before moving to make sure her furs are covering her nightclothes, a nervous smile shot at him before she makes her way to Jon’s bed. 

She sits on the edge of it, in a spot furthest from the rumpled covers. Her hands twist in her lap, teetering on the edge of speaking. Jon waits her out. She’s skittish, too much on her mind. 

“I've been thinking,” she says eventually. “Soulmates kiss, don't they?”

“Usually,” Jon agrees, in a tone he hopes hides the fact that he's had thoughts about this too. “I don't think we’re a normal case, though, Sansa,” he adds, in case she thinks he's pressuring her. 

“Oh, so you don't want to?” She blinks up at him. 

“No,” Jon blurts, startled. “That's not it. I didn't want to...” he trails off. 

“Give me ideas?” Sansa looks up at Jon through her lashes, a shy laugh following, and at moments like this Jon thanks the gods and the world that this is who he spends his life with. “I've read enough stories to know what happens next, Jon.” 

“When I read your name on my wrist I didn’t know what to think,” Jon feels the need to confess, despite all the times they’ve discussed their fate and the way they’ve changed since. “I never wanted to get my hopes up and now you’re here on my bed, talking about kissing, and I still don’t know what to think.” 

“According to Jeyne,” Sansa says shyly. “When you kiss your brain doesn’t leave any room for thoughts.” 

Jon wants to ask if Sansa has told Jeyne about who her mark is, if they’ve discussed him, but he finds he doesn’t think he wants to know. Theon said once that what girls say between one another should be kept there. “Must explain why Theon never has anything to say,” Jon says, catches Sansa’s eye as she tries to hide her smirk. 

She goes to say something else, perhaps another tale from Jeyne, or a list of advantages as to why they should try, but then she shakes her head, takes a breath, and leans forward slowly. It seems to take an age for her lips to meet his even with Jon moving to meet her halfway, but, oh, when they do, it’s too brief, a bump of their mouths, dry, quick, until Sansa startles and Jon’s hand reaches for her shoulder to stop her falling off the bed. 

“Try again,” Sansa whispers. “Jeyne says --”

Jon doesn’t want Jeyne taking up anymore of this -- he moves fractionally quicker this time, his mouth grazing Sansa’s, soft, soft, and then she presses back, her lips wetter this time, her movements not so hesitant. Jon’s walked in on Theon and Jeyne enough times to know that kissing can be fast, sloppy, heading towards another universe of exploration, but for now his head is dizzy with the gentle brush of Sansa’s lips on his, a whole new wonder opening up with the parting of her mouth, his head tilting with hers so that they fit, perfect. 

Aside from the padding of Ghost’s feet as he paces over by the door, their breathing, all too heavy for such chaste action, is the loudest thing in the room. Jon loses himself in the way Sansa has shuffled closer to him, her arm at his neck. When Jon cautiously swipes his tongue along her lower lip she sighs, wriggles closer, and Jon wants to bottle the sound, store it with this moment in his memory. The tales spell out the binding of soulmates, their first kiss, first touch, of how it paves the way for the rest of their time together. For the first time in his life Jon looks towards a future that seems brighter, more open, and tinged with happiness, than it ever did before. 

After a length of time, one too short or too long to quantify past the swell of Jon’s lips and the buzz of his brain, they slowly pull away but keep their heads close, foreheads touching. 

“That was --” Sansa begins, her voice raspy. She doesn’t clear her throat but blinks at Jon, smiles. “-- that was nice.” Jon almost says that nice is too bland a word for them but Sansa adds, “I’ve had dreams about that kiss,” she says, “and nothing ever came close to the real thing,” and that sweeps away every other thought. 

Jon ducks his head to hide the flush of his cheeks, bites his lip to stop him blurting out everything else the same. How could every part of him feel changed so quickly? Sansa laughs at his coyness, hurriedly covers her mouth over the sound because although their night has been one of small thrills, the rest of the castle sleeps. “You’re lovely, Jon. I’m glad I’m here with you.”

When he raises his head it’s to see Sansa cross-legged on his bed, her foot resting against his thigh, and her hand reaching out to coax Ghost over. When he comes, happily wagging his tale, she whispers something to him, a confession that he’ll never hear but one that makes her beam at him stupidly, her face as hot as his own. She looks lighter, like the thought of them kissing had been weighing on her for too long and Jon’s only just now seeing the difference. 

Jon sits in his room in the middle of the night with his soul mate by his side and he doesn’t ever wonder if this is too good to be true. 

  
  


.

  
  


“No, Jon, that’s not how it happened!” Sansa insists, doubling over in fits of laughter. She takes a gasp, bursts into laughter again. “That was  _ Bran _ and I was just --”

Jon’s hand holds onto her arm to keep them both upright but then he gives up and backs them against the tree, head falling into her. “That’s definitely not the way I remember it, Sans, you were the one and Robb --”

That sets them off again. Sansa’s stomach hurts from laughing, her mouth open and wide in a cackle that spreads through the trees. Jon is shaking against her. Her hand comes up to cradle his head, holds him at her shoulder as they both giggle uncontrollably. “Robb would never,” she manages. Jon snorts. 

“Robb would never what?” 

Sansa looks up, pushes Jon away, as Arya marches across the clearing towards them. “Arya,” she says, voice shaky from laughing. 

Arya eyes them suspiciously and Sansa’s heart leaps into overdrive. She’s been closer with Jon recently, that’s true, a development they’ve cited as maturing, getting over their past differences, and genuinely and surprisingly enjoying each others company. But this hits a little past new found friends and into something else. “What are you doing?"

“We were talking about that time with Bran --”

“With you, Sansa,” Jon interrupts. He’s moved away, standing in between Sansa and Arya, his body tilted towards the former. 

“-- and Robb,” Sansa continues over the top of him. 

Arya’s eyes are still narrowed. “I remember it as you, Jon,” she says, which sets Sansa off again, giddy that Arya’s not saying anything about the way Sansa and Jon were resting on each other in a way far too familiar for even the closest siblings -- or, at least, she’s not saying anything out loud which Sansa finds is enough. 

Jon blusters through a denial and Sansa leans back on the tree and watches as his eyes open as he laughs and his stance is easy, relaxed. She doesn’t want to take the credit of loosening him, because he isn’t less than he was and their love hasn’t solved the world, but she likes this side of him and she’s glad she’s getting to witness it. She wonders if her love is painted on her face and then she wonders why she isn’t caring more about that with Arya looking at her like that.

It’s a realisation that she feels safe, that what Arya may know won’t hurt them, won’t dismantle the new relationship they’ve found into something bleak and dark. She feels open and she’s not worried.

After Arya leaves, Nymeria by her side, with a quick look at Sansa that warns her she knows more than she thinks but she won’t say anything, Jon whooshes out a breath, returns to his space beside Sansa. “Imagine we were living unknown in the Lost Cities,” he says and Sansa can hear in his voice that he’s had this fantasy before. “That no one knew who we were and who we were meant to be.” 

“I would hold your hand,” Sansa plays along. “I would wear a ring on my finger and tell stories about my husband with his wild hair and kind eyes and the maids would flock with jealousy.”

“Aye, and we would learn trades and have a house by the sea.”

Phrasing their tale in this faraway fantasy tinges it with childish wistfulness, a taste of something never possible. It suddenly becomes immeasurably sad. There is the option of running, of travelling across Westeros in cognito, of living their lives on the other side of the world, but somehow, simultaneously, they come to the realisation that above everything, even above this new bond of theirs they’ve been coveting, that they will always choose to be Starks, damn the consequences.

With this slow realisation rolling through them Sansa turns her head to catch Jon’s mouth in a kiss, soft. Jon breathes her in, hands cupping her cheeks, and they’re young still, they know that, but they know that glorious as this may feel, they’ve got a while to go.

  
  


.

  
  


Jon’s horse trips and drops him off with a heavy thump as he’s distracted by a comment from Robb. He lies in the ground, stunned by the short fall, and his arm hurts. He thinks distractedly of Sansa, the way he so often does now, and wonders if she has felt her arm break after their experiment and the physical nature of their bond. 

“Are you okay, Jon?” Robb asks, features creased into concern. “That was quite a fall.”

Over Robb’s shoulder Theon hovers, his smirk taunting even as his mouth stays shut. Jon gets to his feet without Robb’s outstretched hand. His arm twinges enough to make him hiss. “I’m going back,” he says and avoids Theon’s eyes.

“I’ll come with you,” Robb says automatically, because that’s their brother Robb, always so ready and willing to help. “Come on, Theon.” To which Theon answers with a snort at the direction but leads Jon’s horse beside his own. 

Sansa’s waiting for them at the door when they return. When she sees them she makes to run forward but catches herself at the last moment and stumbles, her needlework dropping to the ground. When Theon hands it back to her she takes it distractedly, eyes on the angle of Jon’s arm. “Are you okay?” she asks, reaching out. 

“How did you know?” Robb asks before Jon can reply. 

“Oh,” Sansa pauses. “I saw you through the window when Septa was shouting at Arya,” which is a highly likely explanation and isn’t questioned. “Can I help?”

Robb raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Sometimes people help others for no reason,” Sansa replies, holding her head primly. She catches Jon’s eye and smiles. “Anyway, I’m more likely to know what to do than you,” which dismisses Robb, Theon grumbling after him. Sansa rolls her eyes. “Come with me.” 

“Did you feel it?” Jon asks as Sansa leads him to her chamber. Jon’s arm feels heavy and awkward at his side -- when Sansa helps removes his coat he shivers with the pain. She lays a hand on his shoulder in apology as she takes in the damage. 

“I felt a twinge,” she says, worrying her lip. “That’s why I’m assuming it’s not broken. Can you move it?” 

Jon hisses as he tries. “Yes,” he manages. He rotates his shoulder, his wrist, and through the agony he can sense there’s no real damage. “You’re only getting an echo of this,” he feels the need to say defensively at his potential overreaction to a sprain. 

But Sansa trips her fingers down his arm, gentle, careful. “I believe you,” she says. “Our bodies aren’t built for falling.” 

Jon leans into her touch, breathes through the wash of pain. He’ll need to get this looked over by Maester Luwin, perhaps a sling, but that sounds overwhelming at the moment, and so he rests against the cabinet and allows the feel of Sansa’s fingers to calm him. 

  
  


.

  
  


Sansa becomes cocky with her newfound love for the feel of Jon’s lips on hers, his body with hers. She sneaks to his room almost every night, her eyes heavy and glazed at the table the next morning, but it’s worth it for the way Jon struggles to keep his own eyes open, when he takes a sip of Bran’s juice instead of his own and chaos breaks out, and when Arya demands to know why he’s yawning and he flusters over Ghost’s whimpering keeping him awake even though everyone knows Ghost doesn’t make a sound. 

She longs to take off her cloth and show everyone who her heart is bound to, to stand in the parapets and call to as far as the Wall that Jon has her soul and that she has his. She feels giddy, too young and too old at the same time, and all she wants to do is be with him. This is the feeling she read about, the one she feared she wouldn’t get when she first saw Jon’s name, and the one that is amplified with every day that passes.

“I can’t tell you,” she says when Jeyne needles her for the change in her mood, always observant. 

“I told you,” Jeyne argues which is a moot point because Jeyne and Theon have never hidden anything from anyone. “Come on, Sansa. It must be someone in Winterfell,” which doesn’t narrow it down as much as Jeyne might hope but she knows Sansa always had her heart set on a Southern prince and for someone who isn’t that to make her behave this way he must be someone special. 

Sansa clutches at Jeyne’s arm. “Jeyne, I really can’t tell you.” Because through all the kissing and the giggles and the whole different side of Jon she gets to see and know now, they’re still brother and sister, a taboo no one even speaks of unless with disgust. Sansa wonders what it says about her, that she could cast aside any morals and dignity she might have had, she knows what she would have said if someone else was doing what they were, but she stands by the fact that it doesn’t feel wrong, in her heart, and she wonders where else it matters. But she keeps her mouth shut and her eyes down to hold her secrets, and Jon, well, Jon’s a star actor, isn’t he. That scowl’s good enough for anyone. 

Jeyne huffs for a bit, rolling her eyes and focusing her attention on Lady rather than Sansa, but when Septa Mordane calls for them, a tray of lemon cakes balanced on her hip and fending off Bran and Rickon around her ankles, Jeyne follows easily enough, her hand tucked in at Sansa’s elbow. “You’ll tell me when you can, won’t you, Sans?”

“You’ll be the first,” she promises. 

  
  


.

  
  


Word comes from the South of the death of Jon Arryn, the King’s Hand, and suddenly the ground beneath their feet feels unsteady. At mealtimes Jon swaps with Robb to sit beside Sansa, their feet touching beneath the table, hands brushing as much as they dare. Their time feels halted, uncertain, with threat of King Robert coming to Winterfell, their tiny bubble popped by outsiders. When they kiss it’s tinged with desperation, a neediness that they both cling to, one that urges them on faster and faster until they have to remember to stop. 

The possibility of his father becoming the King’s Hand is one he never thought he would be so emotional about it but an upheaval from the routine he and Sansa have cultivated sounds catastrophic from any direction. Moons have passed since their first confession, their first kiss not long after, and Jon doesn’t think he’s overstating when he says everything has changed. 

“Father wants me to go to King’s Landing with him and Arya,” Sansa says, bursting into Jon’s room, forgetting to lower her voice. Jon closes the door after checking the corridor is empty; tells Ghost to stand guard. 

“There’s talk of me going to the Wall,” Jon replies sadly. Uncle Benjen always made the Night’s Watch sound like the most honourable place to be, despite the majority of the men making up the numbers, defending Westeros from the Others, a brother for life, but, and he never thought he’d be one to hinge everything on his heart, he’s felt like a different person since Sansa came to him and showed him her soul. Now the Wall sounds like the other side of the world and the brotherhood for life a shackle. Castle Black is for those with blank wrists, scarred wrists, those who have stole others mates for themselves. Jon knows he wouldn’t fit in if he tried. 

“Oh, Jon, you can’t,” Sansa exclaims, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head on his chest. 

“I want to stay here,” he says, words whispered to her, hushed as though it’s wrong to say such a thing. He repeats his want. “I wish we could stay here.” 

“We have to tell Father,” Sansa says, chewing at her lip. “If he knows he can stop everything else from happening.”

“He’ll hate me,” Jon says immediately. “He’ll blame me for this.”

Sansa raises a hand to touch his cheek. He leans into it, the gesture so new but somehow familiar already. “You know he's a romantic at heart,” and Jon wants to twist away because sometimes Sansa looks at things through a lens that'll never fit him. “I'll do the talking.”

“Okay,” he shrugs because when Sansa decides something there's no way of talking her off it. “Let's do it now.”

Jon kisses her for luck, for courage, for everything in between. 

They seek out their father after supper, when the castle is emptying and the skies are getting dark. At their joint request to talk to him Ned frowns but follows them into the sept, clear this is a conversation built for three. 

“There's no easy way to say this, Father,” Sansa begins and then she stops from going any further. Instead she pulls off the cloth on her wrist and encourages Jon to do the same. His heart still thumps every time his name is exposed. Holding out his arm, Sansa and Jon watch a filtering of expressions across their father’s fact, but Jon is still standing so this already counts as better than expected.

After a long moment Ned sinks down heavily onto a stone bench. He rubs a hand over his face, sighs, the epitome of someone with too much to deal with. “I wish --” he starts, voice gruff. “-- what if I ordered you to ignore them? I marry you both off to other people?”

Sansa chews at her lip so hard blood beads on her bottom lip. She moves a fraction closer to Jon, which Ned doesn't miss. “This feels right, Father, and I know that that's wrong for who we are but please -- don't send us to be with others.” 

“You're of one blood,” Ned replies, the phrasing of which Jon finds odd because of course they know this. 

“But doesn't this mean something?” he says, speaking for the first time. “If the gods are willing to overlook these boundaries, doesn’t that mean that this is true?” 

Ned frowns. “Those boundaries aren’t what you thought they were, Jon,” he says, acknowledging Sansa’s sharp intake of breath with a nod. “This concerns you as well, Sansa, of course.” 

“But Jon looks so much like you --” Sansa begins to say. Sensing her stress Lady leans against her leg, nudges her hip until she twists a hand in her fur. “What do you mean?”

Jon’s almost glad Sansa’s the one taking the reins on this. He swallows hard and then wonders absurdly is if he should have expected this, from the curve of his childhood that never quite matched up with Sansa’s, Robb’s. Never a son of Eddard Stark’s after all. Never a Stark. 

But Sansa’s right -- he's always been his Father’s double, more so than Robb, matching Arya in colouring. “How?” he echoes Sansa. 

“Your mother is my sister, Lyanna.” The Stark who was fierce and free, the one who left a mark on Arya both in looks and spirit. To be a Stark still is perhaps not something Jon should be celebrating, his hand finding Sansa’s so easily, but the Starks are the stronghold of the North, of course he's glad he's still got that blood in him. “And your father is --” Father pauses to arrange his words but there's no other way to say it. “-- Rhaegar --”

“Targaryen?” Sansa finishes, and her hand squeezes, shock tangible. 

The Targaryens are a family banished from the continent, bred of incest and dragons, fire too unruly to control. They are the ones Father helped King Robert Baratheon take the throne from, their king, Aerys II,  killed by his own guard, the rest murdered for their name. The Targaryens are the opposite of the Starks in every way and almost immediately, as though waiting for their prompt, his insides seem to turn against him, each blood vying for the crown.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sansa watching him, face creased in a frown. She makes a minute move towards him, remembers their father,  _ her _ father, his uncle, is there with them. “Why did you never say?” Sansa asks, reading his mind. 

Ned doesn’t want to continue this conversation but he’s always been a fair man, one who will see through the bloody parts that are unavoidably gruesome. “I swore to Lyanna that I wouldn’t. Jon doesn’t look like a Targaryen but the safest option was still to raise you as my own.” Everyone has a bastard, even the honourable Ned Stark. “You look like me,” he says, turning towards Jon. It takes an effort to raise his head and meet Ned’s eyes. “You look like Arya.”

“And everything would’ve continued the way it was until this,” Sansa says.

Ned nods, rubs a hand over his face. “The Targaryens are long gone and everyone left reaps Robert’s rewards but there’s no point dragging it all back up again. People will still lose their heads over this. For you two, though, there’s nothing else that could be said.” 

“That we’re cousins -- that doesn’t have the same connotations?” 

“It’s not ideal but cousins marry, houses are kept within houses, it happens more than you think. When the gods speak...” he trails off, fills in the gap with Jon’s hand wrapped around Sansa’s. 

“Everyone listens,” Jon finishes for him. “We came to tell you this, Father --” A cautious pause follows but Jon doesn’t correct it and he thinks he gets a bending of the lips for it. “Because you want to take Sansa South and me North and we can’t --”

“Please, Father,” Sansa pleads, and she’s much better at this than Jon. She leans forward, holds Ned’s hand, and stares at him with her wide blue eyes. “I couldn’t bear to go to King’s Landing and be so far from Jon.”

“The South has always been your dream, Sansa,” Ned reminds her. 

“That was before,” she says, chin held high, and Jon can’t hold back the beam because she’s talking about him. “I don’t want to be anywhere but here.” 

“And Jon? The Wall?” 

“I don't think the Wall is for me,” Jon says, swallowing. Somehow saying this outloud to his father makes him feel guilt, as though the Wall was always the path destined for him. But it’s never been more than a straying thought in his head, one that was plucked and built upon by disappearing and bastard sons. 

Ned looks at him for a long moment, seeing something Jon doesn’t, and then he does the same with Sansa, searching them for a confirmation that this is it for them. He wants them to remember that although they must respect the gods, soulmates are not the end for everyone, they’re young still, and look at him and Catelyn, a match made from loss not destiny. But when he looks at them he finds the bond there and their want to prove themselves, to right their wrongs in the past, and to do what they can to be with each other. 

He stands up and Jon and Sansa follow. “This isn’t what I imagined for either of you but I’ll support you, this is going to be hard enough without me opposing every move you make. For now, though, we keep this between us. I’ll talk to Robert and your mother and we’ll work something out that suits everyone.”

With that they are dismissed. They make their way back into the sun, blinking at the brightness of it, and Jon turns to Sansa and smiles. This optimism has grown in him from connecting with someone and he doesn’t mind it. 

  
  


.

  
  


When Sansa was younger she envied the sophistication of the South -- the heat, the style, the lifestyle seeming incomparable to the North in all the ways she envied. She would plead with her mother to braid her hair like Southern ladies, like Queen Cersei, the all-mighty beauty with the golden family. Sansa would turn to the South for her answer to happiness, the envy and the sadness of getting there stopping that happiness from ever reaching her. 

At ten-and-four, the King and his wife descend on Winterfell and Sansa struggles to remember why she valued them above her family. In the North they grimace at the cold, keep their feet away from the dirt on the ground, and Sansa tries to remember if the stories and plays mentioned anything of the resilience of the North above the South, because in her eyes, older, wiser, an experience on her back to shape her worldview, Sansa sees her homeland as the clear winner. 

Sansa curtsies for Queen Cersei, smiles demurely, because she’s a lady, a woman almost grown, and respect is shown in the things you keep to yourself. The Queen returns the dip of acknowledgement, makes empty comments about the shine of her hair, before moving on to praise Arya’s shining cheeks, veiled opinions of the messiness of her hair and the tiny smirk Arya sends her way as Tommen sniffles into Cersei’s skirts. There’s a lot to be said about raising children but this is not the place, they all know that. 

With the welcoming over the Stark children make their various excuses and convene in the West Tower, a hideaway from their parents, from the interlopers who want their father for themselves. 

“Father promised Joffrey and Tommen would practice their archery with me,” Bran says forlornly, “but I don’t they look like they’ll want to.” 

“They’ll be tired from the journey, Bran,” Sansa says. “They might be interested another day.”

“I’ll practice,” Rickon says hopefully which falls on deaf ears when Arya scoffs. “Those princes have never seen a bow up close,” which is possibly bordering on treasonous language but Sansa doesn’t take the time to work it out.  “You don’t think Father will go, do you? I don’t want to leave Winterfell -- Micah needs me.”

“That’s supposed to the other way around,” Sansa points out. “Micah serves  _ you _ ,” and here the pedantics are used as a distraction from the way Jon is looking at her, waiting for her to speak up and confirm that their father isn’t going to accept the Hand because two of his family are in love and that’s messy enough. But Sansa is keeping her promise and keeping quiet. “Being asked is an honour.”

“Not when the North is being used again as the enabler for the South,” Robb says, speaking for the first time. He picks Rickon up, holds him against his hip, and, like their mother as he is, Sansa suddenly sees Ned in him. All of a sudden her big brother has become a man and she has forgotten to notice with all her attention on the man beside him. “The King is asking this of Father to keep the relations well and to squash any ill-feeling at the lack of respect show to us.” 

“You’re quoting Theon,” Jon pipes up. “The North has its voice heard when it matters -- there’s been no need for it since the Rebellion.” 

Robb opens his mouth to defend his and Theon’s point when Arya stops them. “I don’t think it’s as political as that,” she says. “The King and Father have always been friends,” which is the most obvious reason and one that doesn’t fracture them so Sansa nods her head and agrees. 

When they scatter, their absence reaching the point of being noticeable, Sansa hovers and Jon copies. 

“There isn’t tension between us and the South, is there?”

Jon shakes his head. “Not that I know of,” he replies. “The Karstarks are always angry and I’m not surprised Theon still has Greyjoy thoughts in his head -- they’ve probably been raised on the anger of the Iron Islands.” 

This is further evidence of the life outside their tiny sphere. Sansa’s not naive, she’s always known that not everyone’s been happy with the way Robert Baratheon has run Westeros, but she never thought of consequences reaching them as far as here. She thinks that even if she didn’t have Jon’s name on her wrist and motives for their safety, she wouldn’t want her father to leave Winterfell for the King. 

The day fades out with Sansa alone in her room and Lady on the bed beside her. In the stark coldness of the bed she realises she’s spent most of her nights in Jon’s company but they couldn’t risk discovery with so many extra people around, and so Sansa turns over on this lonely fact and curls her fists in Lady’s fur, breathing in her warmth. 

The next day bursts open with requests to show the Baratheon children around -- a request that perhaps means well but descends into anarchy as soon as heads are turned. You would think, these children with their high roles and their ages far past the age of childish forgiveness, might be able to civil in such conversations with royalty to be, but that would be overestimating.  

“I demand you show me your mark, Sansa,” Joffrey squeals, pointing his finger. 

“A lady needs her privacy,” Sansa replies, keeping her head high. She's not going to the South, there's no danger for her if she angers the King to Be, but she doesn’t want Cersei snarling in her direction. She’s been in Winterfell for two days  

Lady snaps at him when he approaches further but Arya steps forward, Nymeria at her heels, and says loudly, “Just because you show yours off doesn’t mean everyone feels the same,” which is remarkably restrained for Arya and yet dangerously provocative anyway for Joffrey. Sansa appreciates the sentiment, not least because Arya has been needling her for so long about her name, the Gendry on her own unapologetically on show. She knows that Arya is smart and that Sansa and Jon haven’t been hiding their new closeness, but she also hopes that Arya hasn’t quite put it together yet -- to her Sansa and Jon being soulmates would be as absurd and out of the blue as Lady getting on her hind legs and marrying Prince Tommen. 

“If she’s not telling it must be someone shameful,” Joffrey jeers, “and we can’t have  _ shame _ in the great Starks.”

“It’s not shameful.” Jon appears behind Sansa, a towering height above Joffrey, anger vibrating off of him. 

“So you know?” Joffrey asks, delighted. “Jon Snow, the bastard brother knows, but no one else does?” Sansa takes a breath and prays Joffrey is not as smart as some might estimate. She catches Arya’s eye, Arya who she can tell now has always known more than she’s given credit for, who’s looking at Sansa and Jon standing together with a blank expression, betraying nothing.

“I don’t know,” Jon lies, takes a step forward, one Joffrey mirrors by stepping back. “I’m saying Sansa’s right -- a lady has a right to her privacy and if she doesn’t want to show you her name that doesn’t mean anything.”

Which is a couple of steps past Arya’s retort. Joffrey’s face contorts into a scowl, mouth open in anger, but before he can reply Jaime Lannister calls him over to “show the boys how to hit a target” which sounds wildly implausible but it makes Joffrey leave with a huff and a promise of more later, and leaves Sansa, Jon, and Arya standing. 

“Thank you for defending me, Arya,” Sansa says. 

Arya shrugs; she loves any excuse to fight. “Marks are private.” 

“You’ve been asking about mine ever since I got it,” Sansa points out. 

“I’ve got my own now,” she replies, her hand drifting to her cloth self-consciously, and oh, Sansa hadn’t thought of that. In a turn of hypocrisy she wants to ask who it is. “And besides, I think I’ve known yours for a while,” and now she flicks her eyes to Jon who shuffles his feet and takes his time deciding if he wants to meet her eyes or not. 

Sansa’s heart clenches. “And what do you think about that?” 

Arya weighs her up, seeming older than the small feisty girl who’s always looking for trouble. “I think it’s odd and -- and questionable but you must have your reasons.” 

Because of this understanding they explain the wider story to her. Sansa catches something flicker in Arya’s eyes -- Jon’s always been her favourite brother and now he’s never been her brother at all, not by blood, but she’s grown up with tales of Lyanna Stark, adoration in her eyes, and so this is a worthy change. “Oh,” she says, when Jon’s finished. He’s standing closer to Sansa now, having read the mood. “Well, that changes things.”

“So you see,” Sansa explains. “We know it’s not conventional and it’s unexpected and not everyone will be as accepting as you but the gods willed it and over the time we’ve spent together we’ve realised they were right to ignore this oversight.” 

“I thought I suspected but it still seemed so strange.”

Jon huffs a laugh. “It’s been a journey,” he says, catching Sansa’s eye and exchanging a smile that has Arya groaning. 

“Ugh, now I’m wondering how I missed all of this. That look was dis _ gusting, _ Jon, you should be ashamed.” 

“Hey, Sansa has half my soul,” he defends himself. “The looks come with that.”

It feels so gloriously nice to joke about it like this, to discuss it out in the open, that Sansa wishes more desperately than before that they could tell others, but, as always, the look on her mother’s face is enough to stop those fantasies fast. 

“You’re being just as bad, Sansa,” Arya adds, but she’s smiling a little, like this is something she’ll be okay with once she’s adjusted. The relief floods Sansa’s system and carries off the load on her shoulders. With Arya on their side Sansa feels they have a fighting chance should it ever come to that. 

  
  


.

  
  
  


“I think Lady likes you more than me,” Sansa pouts, dropping onto the ground beside Jon. Lady circles her before settling at Jon’s knees. 

“I feel the same about Ghost and you,” Jon says as Sansa holds out a hand to meet Ghost’s snout. 

“Do we take this a sign?”

“There are legends of Starks and their direwolves,” Jon offers. His hand cards through Lady’s fur -- she nuzzles into his palm, whines when he stops. “Who’s to say they don’t have our soul?” 

“I can’t decide if that’s romantic or not.” 

“Anything I say is romantic,” Jon says, which should be taken as a blatant joke but even Bran mentioned something recently about Jon’s vocabulary being replaced with that of a man in love. They’re being careless again but Sansa doesn’t have the energy to rein it in. “You bring it out of me,” he accuses Sansa. 

“No, that’s not true. I remember -- you’ve always had a romantic side, always wanting the ends of Septa’s stories even as Robb got restless and wanted to play.” 

“I stayed for the glory of the soldiers,” he tries. 

“You stayed for the love,” she corrects. “Admit it, Jon Snow, you’ve been dreaming of your wife for as long as me.” 

“I never knew where I was going to be when I was this age,” he says. “Bastards don’t get wives you dream about.” 

“You’re not a bastard,” Sansa says. “You’re a Stark and a Targaryen and I would marry you the moment I could.” 

Jon rolls his head back. “When will that be?” 

“Soon,” Sansa says but she doesn’t promise because there’s no need to do with something she can’t keep. “So, are you happy where you are?”  Without the secrets, she doesn’t add.

The corners of his mouth twitch. “I am, are you?” 

Some days Sansa’s heart feels so full of love she could burst, as though the body can only handle so much. Sansa uses up her allowance daily. “I am,” she whispers. 

Jon’s smile grows. He leans in and kisses her, that smile stopping them, both of them pulling back, grinning, and then trying again, their mouths bumping and their laughter disruptive. Sansa curls her hand in Jon’s hair and holds him close as she kisses him, this time it works, perfect, and Sansa lets a breath loose, feels it caught in Jon’s mouth. 

They lean against the tree that they have come to know as theirs and they sit and let the world continue to turn, blissful in their own small sphere to worry much further into the future. 

  
  


.

  
  


With Sansa in Winterfell and Ned turning down the Hand, there are no leaks of Lannister children masquerading as Baratheons, and no one loses their head. Nevertheless, Cersei can't bear to stay with her husband with a name she can't pretend says Jaime. They don't care so much about names in the South but Cersei likes the poetic justice of it all as she puppeteers her subjects to spark a war of old men and passed over brothers. 

The North stirs as rumbles of secession make their way around the houses, looking to Winterfell for guidance. Ned Stark stands in the courtyard and frowns into the distance, a grief for a King  challenge the boy king who kills whores for pleasure. The North wants their power back, so much more than an addition to a kingdom so unlike their own way of life. The North rallies around Winterfell and the Starks and Ned stands in the courtyard with a frown on his face and the grief of his drunk, reckless, friend and makes a decision. They’ll challenge, but quietly, slowly, gently, once the Greyjoys have burned out and Stannis and Renly have lost half their armies. They’ll watch King’s Landing burn and oh, it’ll hurt Ned’s heart and his head to do it, but they’ll wait until Joffrey begs on his knees and then they’ll offer their neutrality in exchange for power in their lands. In this scenario, Westeros shifts and the Starks stay strong. It’s a story for the ages, one that overshadows Renly and Stannis’s squabbles, the land they’re granted, the discussion of Stannis on the Throne. The Lannisters don’t have room to beg, not when murmurs are beginning of the colour of their hair and the power of genetics and bastards. The landscape of the continent changes and Jon and Sansa stay in their castle and do what they can to help their wounded, the ones who marched south prematurely and those who burned in the wrath of Balon Greyjoy and his short-reaching damage.

With Jon in Winterfell and no one taking on his plan with the Others, with the wildlings, the White Walkers threaten to spill over the Wall. With no Stannis to come to the disjointed Night’s rescue, they fail and the Walkers come. They are eventually stopped by a resurgent Watch and the calls to the houses of the North returning to do what Bran the Builder started with his wall. The Starks lead the effort in halting the march of the Walkers, losing some of their own, but ultimately succeeding. Jon joins the fight with a sword forged by Ned Stark and he fights beside his father and his brother, the memory of the warm home waiting for him spurring him on. Sansa spends her time learning strategies and creating plans with Arya and Bran, opening her brain up to new worlds and options. 

On a wider scale things happen more or less the same. There's less tragedy to strike the Starks but the War of the Kings rages and each person benefits or loses differently to the person next to them. Everything spirals out, same as before, but the consequences aren’t quite as horrific and none of them are dead yet, so, in summation, with Sansa and Jon tied as one soul, it has far-reaching consequences, most of them overwhelmingly positive. 

The situation is explained to the rest of the family in small parts that don’t have much effect alone but when put together equal the enormity of the past few years of their lives. They begin with the tragic tale of Lyanna and Rhaegar as a base for what comes next and when that is received with shock but general support, Sansa and Jon don’t announce their bond but they don’t hide as they did before. Occasionally they will be caught holding hands or sitting with their heads too close, their whispers intimate, and if the person who caught them thinks back to the years before the war and the gradual closeness of the two children, they’ll add on the knowledge of Jon’s parentage and they’ll realise that actually, this isn’t the big surprise they expected it to be. 

Those who react strongest are Catelyn and Robb, the two who felt they knew the family inside out and were instead missing the biggest secret to come through their family since the birth of Jon. Catelyn’s sorrow at Sansa’s soulmate is counterbalanced by the information that Ned never bore a child with another woman and Robb comes around to the relationship when he realises that nothing has really changed. Arya stands with them as their biggest advocate, shooting off comments to those who are less than accepting, pointing out the longing looks and the whispers from as young and ten-and-three to those who say it’s too absurd to be true. It’s all absurd, this soulmate practice, she says, you take what you’re given and you make it what you want and no one’s done that better than Sansa and Jon. 

The war ends with Stannis on the Iron Throne and the North observing the Throne’s authority but dealing with their own matters their own way. It’s a scenario that suits almost everyone and that’s the closest they’re going to get. 

The war ends and Sansa realises that her family has made it through to the other side with no more than some bruises and cuts that will heal with time. The relief is so strong she throws her arms around Jon’s neck and kisses him hard, the two of them swaying. Lady and Ghost circle their feet, threading the excitement through them, and making Sansa and Jon stumble against each other. “I love you,” she says when they break apart. “The other half of my soul.”

They become soppy, disgusting, swoony with happiness. They haven’t had the troubles of the universes where their family crumbles and they live through horrors, but they’ve looked at the parts they find in one another and they become better people for it, and in this idyllic world they stand in their home, their family’s blessings surrounding them, and they think of the future. 

  
  



End file.
